


Finding Home Again

by TV_addict_86



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bellarke, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-22 23:59:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6098224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TV_addict_86/pseuds/TV_addict_86
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story about home. What home is, what it's like to lose it and what we're willing to go through to find it again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this a while ago, decided to post it on Tumblr and AO3. From now on I'll probably post here and add links to Tumbr to get here.  
> I want to write more, so I’m going to push myself a little by just putting this out there. 
> 
> It’s eventually going to be a Bellarke story, I’m not quite sure yet how long you’ll have to wait for that to happen though! I’ve got about 3000 words written so far and they are nowhere near even meeting yet…  
> It’s a modern AU and the rating is probably ‘General Audiences’ right now, I mean, they’ll probably swear at some point so maybe it should be higher? I don’t know. Before this week I've never posted any of my writing online and I haven’t ever really thought about the rating for my own stuff before, so yeah, I’ll change the rating when I find a good reason for it or if someone asks me to.
> 
> I'll add relationships and characters to the tags as they develop in the story.
> 
> Let me know what you think!!

**Chapter one**

The sun was beating down on her bare shoulders, causing rivulets of sweat to stream down between her shoulder blades. Her heavy backpack pressed her tank top to her back, which is why it was now damp and sticky from soaking up the sweat that had made it down. She was tired; she’d been travelling for days, carrying as much of her belongings as she could in her backpack. She felt like it got heavier with every single step she took, but she wouldn’t give in, wouldn’t give up. Because she was free. 

She had gotten on the bus before sunrise that morning thinking she’d get as much travelling time out of the day as was humanly possible. But she’d had enough of the bus after just a few hours, the heat and humidity making it one of the least comfortable places to be, so when they drove through a small town near the ocean she just thought ‘what the hell’ and asked the bus driver to pull over and let her out. It turned out it wasn’t as easy as that, he ignored her, muttering about how ‘this wasn’t a stop on the route and kids these days needed to learn about fixed schedules’ and ‘you can’t always get what you want when you want it little lady’. So she’d started making gagging noises and in between coughs uttered words like ‘motion sickness’ and ‘is the road spinning’ and ‘oh god I shouldn’t have eaten that breakfast burrito this morning’.

In a matter of minutes she was standing on the side of the road, about a mile past the town she’d thought looked cute enough to stay for a while. It was a small town near the ocean. She figured she could stay there for as long as it took to get her life up and running again. Who would look for her there? If she was lucky she’d find a job, maybe a temporary place to stay, anything would be better than what she left right?

It didn’t take her long to figure out she wasn’t very lucky. The problem with small towns was that there really weren’t that many jobs just lying around. She’d walked around the entire town without finding a single ‘help wanted’-sign. 

Twice. 

There was a motel on the edge of town, so at least for tonight she’d have a roof over her head. If need be she could probably afford one or two more nights there, but if she didn’t find a way to scrounge up a little more cash, she didn’t know what the hell she was supposed to do. Maybe she should have thought this through a little better. But really, who thinks things through in the middle of the night after the biggest fight you’ve ever had in your whole life with the person you thought was supposed to love you forever? 

Nobody. 

Well, maybe less hot-headed people would. Anyway, who cares, she’s free. Yeah, free to starve or die of heatstroke she thought sourly. No! She’d succeed, she’d show him she could take care of herself just fine, she didn’t need him for that. Maybe for now she could just take a break from finding a job for a couple minutes, watch the ocean for a little while to clear her head. She walked the couple blocks down towards the ocean; she could already smell the salt in the air. 

As she walked (or stumbled really) onto the beach, she noticed it wasn’t very busy thank god. There were just a few families with little children and what seemed like a couple enjoying a romantic stroll along the shoreline. She plopped down on the sand heavily and pulled out her bottle of water. After a few sips (gulps) she tugged the button down shirt she’d tied around her hips off and used it to wipe away the sweat on her face and neck. Feeling at least marginally better, she noticed how the couple maybe wasn’t a couple at all. Or if they were, they were a weird couple. 

They weren’t holding hands, they weren’t really touching at all actually, there must have been several feet separating them at all times. The guy looked frustrated while the girl just looked sort of sad and resigned. They were swerving away from the shoreline now, it seemed they were headed towards town. As they got closer to where she was sitting, she noticed the guy was doing most of the talking and it seemed he was trying hard not to start yelling, even if he was talking loud enough already that she could hear every word he said. 

“I don’t know how to talk to you anymore! Everything I say, whatever it is, you’ll just say ok and alright. It’s like you’ve checked out of everything, you can’t go on like this, you can see that right? You need help and I’m not just talking about the café.” The girl stopped walking at that. They were quite close to her now and she didn’t mean to eavesdrop.

It’s just, they were right there and she’d have to put her fingers in her ears as to not hear what they were saying. The girl glared at the guy and he seemed almost happy about that. “I do not need help Wells! I’m doing fine on my own – no don’t interrupt, you wanted me to talk, so listen! – I’m doing fine, maybe not good, definitely not great, but fine none the less. Stop acting like I’m some sort of porcelain doll that’s about to break. I’m stronger than you seem to think, just because that douchebag..” the girl seemed to suddenly realize she was basically yelling about her personal life in front of perfect strangers at the beach, because she glanced around and finished her sentence in an angry whisper that could only be heard by the guy. 

The guy - Wells? - scoffed and rolled his eyes as he started walking again, passing her sitting there on his way towards town. “You know this isn’t just about him Clarke, don’t you think more important things have happened in these last couple of months?” The girl hadn’t started walking with him, so he turned around to face her again. “At least hire someone at the café.” He said somewhat resignedly. “You know the guys and I love you and we’ll pitch in whenever we can like we have for the last month, but you can’t run the café on your own with just us dropping in when we can. You need more structural help.” 

Her ears perked up at that, maybe she was lucky after all, and she stopped trying not to eavesdrop. But the girl looked down at her shoes a little deflated and replied “I can’t afford a full-time waitress, you know that. And before you say it, I’m not calling her! She’ll just take it as proof I can’t keep the café running on my own and tell me to get my ass back to school and just give up this silly little fantasy of mine. And I’m NOT doing that!” As she was talking the volume of her voice had started rising again and the guy held his hands up as if he was surrendering. “I wasn’t going to suggest that, I know you better than that. But maybe you could just talk to her sometime, she”, “Wells!” If looks could kill, the girl would soon be charged with murder, she thought. 

“I was just gonna say she misses you! You don’t have to talk about the café, just let her know you’re still alive!” The girl was fuming now. From her front-row seat at this street-theater - or beach theater really - she could almost see the smoke coming out of the girls ears. “She misses me?! You guys talk about me a lot do you? You know what, maybe you should go see her right now, while you still have this conversation fresh in your memory and you can reiterate it word for word to her! Who knows, maybe she’ll even put in a good word for you with your attending! God I thought you were my friend, not her spy.” 

All the fight seemed to have left her at those words and she let herself collapse to the beach. “Just leave me alone Wells, I’ve got less than an hour left before I have to get back and I’d like to enjoy it in peace.” 

He seemed so sad, looking at the girl in front of him with those big brown puppy dog eyes. “Clarke, I am your friend, first and foremost, but you know I can’t avoid her at work.” When the girl didn’t respond but just looked out over the ocean, he stepped in her line of sight. “Clarke…” She saw the girl lift her shoulders up to her ears and then release them, sighing “Please Wells, really, just… just leave.” He crouched down next to her and squeezed her shoulder. “Fine, I’ll leave you alone for now. But I’ll call you tomorrow morning, right after my shift ok?” The girl didn’t respond. The guy squeezed her shoulder once more before he stood up and started walking towards town again.

/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/*-*/ 


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Any and all comments are appreciated! Is something not working? Is the tone wrong? What did you like, what didn't you like? Let me know!  
>  Oh, and I changed the rating to Teen and up, for swearing. If someone feels this needs to be higher still, again, let me know :)_

He didn’t know what to do.

He was going out of his mind and though he was pretty sure rational thinking would be a big plus in this situation, he wasn’t having any success in getting to rational from out of his mind with worry. He’d looked for her in all the usual spots, there weren’t that many so that was done fairly quickly. He tried texting her and calling her, but after about a dozen tries his calls had started going directly to voicemail so she’d probably turned her phone off. Or in the darker recesses of his mind she was lying in a ditch somewhere and her phone had died too.

No, she wasn’t.. just.. no. She’d run off and that had somehow started to become a good thing. You know, in comparison.

God, why did she have to have such a bad temper and why was she so fucking impulsive?! Didn’t she realize what she was doing to him? He knew he hadn’t said the right words and done the right things but she is all he has left and he’d do absolutely everything to keep her safe and she just. wouldn’t. let. him.

He ran up the stairs to their apartment because just walking up the stairs was not possible right now, not with all this excess energy flowing through his bloodstream. He was pretty sure it was the adrenaline keeping his heart pumping faster than it really needed to, ever since that morning when he found her bed empty, not having been slept in either.

He maybe wouldn’t have even noticed that, except for the fact that after she had ran out and he had somewhat calmed down, he felt bad. And he knew he should have handled everything better. He’d make it up to her, starting with his go-to for making up with O, washing her sheets and making her bed.

It felt silly the first time he’d done that, but the look on her face and the hug he’d gotten when she noticed was the absolute best. She’d been grumping about the apartment all day because the boy she liked, and kissed but Bellamy pretended that hadn’t happened, had moved across the country because the kid’s dad had gotten some kind of big promotion. He didn’t really know how to cheer her up because he was still trying really hard not to acknowledge his baby sister was interested in boys now. And wanted to kiss them. Nope, that wouldn’t be happening yet, not for years. When he walked into the bathroom and saw her bed sheets drying he figured, why not? Just this once. This was something he could do for her today that would possibly make her a little less sulky.

Ever since she was old enough to help out around the house she’d been told by Bellamy that since she slept in it, she was responsible for her own room. He’d gotten pretty tired of always telling her to make her bed after he washed the sheets and really just every damn day because she threw the sheets off herself and halfway off the bed every morning without bothering to make the bed after. He didn’t think she actually noticed where her sheets ended up, because as soon as she was awake she’d bound down the stairs to see if he’d made breakfast yet.

At first he thought she’d make her bed when she’d be responsible for washing them too. Didn’t quite work out. She’d wash and dry the sheets and then just dump them all on the damn bed for her to find when she crawled between them half asleep. After a while (and another mostly friendly argument) she did tell him she loved to go to sleep in a clean bed with the sheets neatly tucked in the way he used to do for her when she was younger, but that she couldn’t enjoy it as much if she had to take time out of her always very busy days to actually make the bed herself. He’d rolled his eyes at her dramatics then, but filed the information away for future reference anyway.

Now Bellamy felt like the neatly made bed, as a peace-offering, was mocking him. Even if he couldn’t see the bed from the living room where he sat now, next to the answering machine with his back against the wall, he was pretty sure it was mocking him.

The first thing he’d done after nearly breaking the door down in his agitated state was to check if maybe she’d called the landline because her phone had died on her and she could never remember the number of his cellphone. That’s the only reason they still have the damn landline. But no, not a single message from Octavia on the answering machine. His hope had flared when he saw the red blinking light telling him someone had left a message, but it was just the manager from the coffee shop asking him if he was dead and if he wasn’t to give him a call.

Bellamy had let out a stream of curses at that, because he’d actually forgotten he had a shift this morning. He never forgot. But then again, Octavia had never not come home at night. He couldn’t lose his job, even if it was just one of three he was working at the moment.

While he was at it he cursed himself for not realizing she had left. He’d noticed the first time, obviously, as it was done with a lot of shouting at him and angry tears that had made his heart ache but not enough for him to set his anger aside. He did try waiting up for her, he hated leaving things unresolved between them, but when she wasn’t back by half past eleven he decided he needed his sleep. Because back then he did remember he had a job to get to in the morning.

Besides, she had just told him that day that she was legally an adult now. Or well, she’d shouted it at him, but yeah. So if she wanted to stay out late, that was fine with him. It wasn’t, not really, but what was he going to do? Put a tracker on her or something like they were in some damn spy movie? He kind of wished he had now, but still. She wasn’t wrong, she turned eighteen two months ago.

He didn’t actually fall asleep until he’d heard the door opening and closing, her footsteps in the hall, pausing in front of  his bedroom and then continuing on to her own bedroom. He was dead tired though, she’d stayed out until one o’clock, he’d been about to start looking for her when he’d heard her come in. So as soon as he’d known she was home he’d fallen asleep like a log, the day and the fight taking their toll.

He should have talked to her then. Shouldn’t have let himself fall asleep. He didn’t understand how he could’ve been so damn stupid. They always talked their shit out, no matter how bad it got. And now she was gone.  


End file.
